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ANTHRO 49:Violence and Belonging in the Middle East

This course examines politics in the Middle East from an anthropological perspective. We will explore the symbolic expression of political identities, the effects of religious revival on political institutions, and the tumultuous culture of protest in the region. Readings discuss the historical development of rights and citizenship, Islamic politics, sectarian tensions, and imaginings of revolution. Course materials are drawn from ethnographic studies and films, which provide a rich contextualization of social life and cultural politics in the region.

Stanford was built on land originally inhabited by the Muwekma Ohlone tribe, and Native American students have always held an important place in the university community from the writer and journalist John Milton Oskison (Cherokee) who graduated in 1894 to current enrolments of over three hundred students who represent over fifty tribes. Two hundred years ago, the Muwekma language was one of a hundred languages that made California one of the most linguistically-diverse places on earth. Today, less than half of these languages survive but many California Indian communities are working hard to maintain and revitalize them. This is a familiar pattern globally: languages around the world are dying at such a rapid rate that the next century could see half of the world's 6800 languages and cultures become extinct unless action is taken now. Focusing especially on California, this course seeks to find out how and why languages die; what is lost from a culture when that occurs; and how `sleeping¿ languages might be revitalized. We will take a field trip to a Native American community in northern California to witness first-hand how one community is bringing back its traditional language, songs, dances, and story-telling. We will learn from visiting indigenous leaders and linguistic experts who will share their life, language, and culture with the class. Through weekly readings and discussion, we will investigate how languages can be maintained and revitalized by methods of community- and identity-building, language documentation and description, the use of innovative technologies, writing dictionaries and grammars for different audiences, language planning, and data creation, annotation, preservation, and dissemination. Finally, the course will examine ethical modes of fieldwork within endangered-language communities.

Last offered: Winter 2017
| UG Reqs: WAY-ED, WAY-SI

ANTHRO 82:Medical Anthropology (ANTHRO 282, HUMBIO 176A)

Emphasis is on how health, illness, and healing are understood, experienced, and constructed in social, cultural, and historical contexts. Topics: biopower and body politics, gender and reproductive technologies, illness experiences, medical diversity and social suffering, and the interface between medicine and science.

Dynamics of culturally inherited human behavior and its relationship to social and physical environments. Topics include a history of ecological approaches in anthropology, subsistence ecology, sharing, risk management, territoriality, warfare, and resource conservation and management. Case studies from Australia, Melanesia, Africa, and S. America.

ANTHRO 91:Method and Evidence in Anthropology

This course provides a broad introduction to various ways of designing anthropological questions and associated methods for collecting evidence and supporting arguments. We review the inherent links between how a question is framed, the types of evidence that can address the question, and way that data are collected. Research activities such as interviewing, participant observation, quantitative observation, archival investigation, ecological survey, linguistic methodology, tracking extended cases, and demographic methods are reviewed. Various faculty and specialists will be brought in to discuss how they use different types of evidence and methods for supporting arguments in anthropology.

ANTHRO 93B:Prefield Research Seminar: Non-Majors

Preparation for anthropological field research in other societies and the U.S. Data collection techniques include participant observation, interviewing, surveys, sampling procedures, life histories, ethnohistory, and the use of documentary materials. Strategies for successful entry into the community, research ethics, interpersonal dynamics, and the reflexive aspects of fieldwork. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center).

The course is an introduction to the social organization of material production and to the theoretical, ethnographic, and historical frameworks used by archaeologists to link the technologies of the past to salient sociocultural information about the people who employed them. Comparison of metallurgical, ceramic, lithic, and textile industries in different cultural and historical settings will inform critical discussions of how and to what extent analyses of artifacts, workshops, and industrial installations can provide insight into past societies.

Last offered: Winter 2015
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI

ANTHRO 101S:Introduction to Cultural and Social Anthropology (ANTHRO 1S)

This course introduces basic anthropological concepts and presents the discipline's distinctive perspective on society and culture. The power of this perspective is illustrated by exploring vividly-written ethnographic cases that show how anthropological approaches illuminate contemporary social and political issues in a range of different cultural sites.

The development of high civilizations in Andean S. America from hunter-gatherer origins to the powerful, expansive Inca empire. The contrasting ecologies of coast, sierra, and jungle areas of early Peruvian societies from 12,000 to 2,000 B.C.E. The domestication of indigenous plants which provided the economic foundation for monumental cities, ceramics, and textiles. Cultural evolution, and why and how major transformations occurred.

ANTHRO 109A:Archaeology of the Modern World (ANTHRO 209A, ARCHLGY 109A)

Historical archaeology, also called the archaeology of the modern world, investigates the material culture and spatial history of the past five centures. As a discipline, historical archaeology has been characterized by (1) a methodological conjunction between history and archaeology; (2) a topical focus on the ¿three Cs¿: colonization, captivity, and capitalism ¿ forces which arguably are constitutive of the modern world; and (3) an epistemological priority to recovering the perspectives of ¿people without history.¿ Each of these three trends is widely debated yet they continue to profoundly shape the field. This seminar provides an in-depth examination of the emergence and development of this historical archaeology, with a focus on current issues in theory and method. For undergraduates, the prerequisite is
Anthro 3 or consent of instructor.